Electric-Knight

Hey, this got lost in the shuffle, but...
Thanks for typing out these reports from the convention, Ransim!!

And thanks for the nice list in the second post, Orion Star!


Oh, and... fine... thanks to you as well, Marcian.

Hehehe
The thing is, I wouldn't exactly refer to either of those movies as very well written or anything.
And that's the key, really.

Sure, effects and performances can be exciting and interesting and entertaining, depending on the nature of the piece... But when all is said and done and you think about what you just sat through... it is going to be whether the writing held up to your criticisms.

I'm the same way. However, I don't have the same needs for closure from a story.
I do, however, pretty much demand that there is a a sense of story/purpose/a well designed development of interest that, afterward, I can say, "Ahh, that was well done".
In movies today... it is a rarity.

It's sort of hard to explain, especially since (really) it's a matter of my own opinion. I'm just a fan of craftsmanship. So, when I watch something (I really never stick with a book that I don't have confidence in) that clearly seems to lack that skilled aspect of actually having something to say, I get rather annoyed.
It is the same thing as people who tell a story... that has no point, is not interesting and tells it rather poorly.
"I... uh... went to get coffee... and my car wouldn't start. A bumble bee flew by my ear. And... uh... I realized I had the wrong keys. I went to the store and got tea instead! HAHA!"
...
It's never entertaining.

But yeah... I don't need the main character reconnecting with his wife, nor do I need to love the main characters, nor do I necessarily mind if they die (Although, I really don't like it when it is clearly just "Oooh, I'm so clever, we'll kill them all and it will be C00l!!!" It's not clever, it's not cool... it's sort of typical and boring, in my opinion. Reservoir Dogs may have gotten it okay... been a long time since I watched it and I can't quite remember. I didn't really care for it though. I enjoyed a bit of Tarantino's style, but that movie wasn't all that, for my personal tastes).

As for villains needing some redeemable quality for you to get into them... I can understand that. I think the key for me is in still trying to learn and understand the person even if I despise them.
I may not agree with nor like anything about that character... However, if I can see valid reasons for why that character is like that, it makes it interesting to me. So much so that I might want to explore further and see if maybe, just maybe, I can actually find something that I can relate to and/or like about that person. Whether I do or don't doesn't matter so much as just simply enjoying the exploration to find out.

Thanks Sam. Haven't really thought about this sort of thing in a while!

(My apologies for a bit of a random series of replies... I was only going to reply quickly to the first thing before running afk for a while, hehe... but you know how it is!)

"Shedding light"?
A "typical MMORPG player"...

As one atypical MMORPG player, I kindly suggest that people accept that not all things need be typical

I filed a bug report and reported this in beta:

For a Male Model, the Aura option Electricity--> "Body-Combat" uses the "Body and Eyes-Combat" aura instead of just having the body aura (It includes the eye aura with the body aura).

The normal (non-combat) aura option works correctly.
It is just the one combat option that is assigned the wrong aura.
And it is only for Male Models, as it works correctly for Female and Huge Models.

As The Electric-Knight... I thought I'd try and get this solved!

I've not been involved in this particular little topic, but it definitely has been based on semantics.
As has been said... some people, earlier on (mostly), made some rather negative comments about it, but the people who have been going back and forth really were not.

It is just certain wording that is causing some hangups...

Unfortunately, as a visitor on this planet, these rules and guidelines seem to be devised with the intent to please minds that are unlike my own.

That being said...
I just enjoy interesting characters, developments, scenarios.
I enjoy cheering for, cheering against, getting to know the depths of a character or several characters and/or inter-personal dynamics...
I definitely seem to enjoy things of the psychological nature.

I really dislike the whole notion of needing a character to identify with... especially when people (Establishments, institutions, programmed instructors, Hollywood, etc) always equate that to requiring actual humans in science fiction... Or any genre, of course.
It's funny, despite seeing obvious examples done throughout time, people will still cling to rules that they've been told are necessary.

Let's see if I can stop digressing...

I do tend to be rather empathic and open to relating to other beings' situations and ways. No matter their species, phylum, kingdom... single to multiple cells, biological or technological... faces or no faces... I respect all life (Huh, now I'm interested to read a story about nonliving objects... The Tale of the Tumbling Boulder...) and I can get into any interesting and well-written story no matter if the characters' are like me or wholly unlike me.


As for my own character creation...

I always think back on a conversation I had with a table top role-playing partner and longtime friend many moons ago. We were discussing a party of rather evil characters we had played together for a while and she commented on how even those extreme characters shared similarities with ourselves.
It wasn't completely unknown to me, but it was sort of that "huh, I see it all now" discovery point.

All of the characters I create tend to have at least one aspect of myself that I usually amplify (Or, occasionally, extremely minimize).
Now, I tend to delve deep into the psyche of characters that I create, because I have always loved to get fully inside another mind and explore situations through their eyes and neural pathways to see how they interpret and react.
It's basically the same as really delving into a character in an acting role. When you really set yourself to explore their inner selves, often to define it yourself to use that as a springboard for the character's (seemingly) natural behavior.
Sorry if that's all a bit much and/or a load of nonsense to you (the reader), but thems are my enjoyments and hobbies, so to speak.

I don't have to be cheering on these characters. I don't even necessarily have to like the character. Often times, I find myself enjoying characters that I possibly despise.
I find it interesting.
As I get to know that character that I may despise, I can begin to understand why the person is that way. And, often times, I can sympathize, or at least feel sorry for the character. This goes both for characters that I create and characters that I read and/or watch.
I like my art to reflect life, most of the time, and life, to me, isn't about cheering or jeering on teams scoring or defending against goals... but just an accumulation of moments that sometimes create a remarkable situation that will unfold more remarkable events.
Whomever the players are, there is generally interest in observing and/or experiencing those events, for myself.


Wait, what was the question?

Once again, some excitingly positive news from you guys!

I have to admit, while I love this idea of the Fitness Pool being inherent... I am a little wary about Swift and Hurdle being slapped on to every character.
They add a noticeable difference to running and jumping (Hurdle more so for me, but each person's mileage may vary).
It's not a hugely negative concern, but it is something that could threaten the feel of individual characters a bit. Just a thought. If there were some way to refuse one of those powers, it might be cool. Maybe unslotted Hurdle doesn't do as much as I am thinking at the moment.

Again... not a big negative, but just something that came to mind when hearing it.

The Underground is a different zone. I'm not positive how the tech works regarding the different area of the Underground, as I've not explored them yet (Are they actually divided up down there or is it just one large zone?).

Do you have to load from one section of the Underground to the other?

Slug, very well said. I agree completely.
I don't see how it could be seen as a fair/balanced review when he continually slowed the fast paced narrative down to highlight negatives and just casually quips that some things were pretty cool.


However... Benefit of the doubt:

Maybe he got so annoyed by having to create a character, load into the game, change the settings, restart the game in order to just set the resolution and graphics options right.
I think this could be the most valuable aspect of this review. That poor introduction could easily ruin a new potential customer's mindset and outlook on the game.
It's not necessarily the wisest way to be, but a large amount of people will let such an introduction ruin their perception to the point that they'll never let the game rise above that.


Here's the question I was wondering about though... It's been so long since I did a completely fresh install of the game... What are the default settings when you load it up?
I would have thought the resolution would default to the desktop resolution. How would it have ended up so off on his machine?

Sam, he's referring to this particular reviewer who totally failed to use his ranged attacks and his ranged immobilize power to do anything about runners.

We can launch into personal opinions about game mechanics we do or don't like, but I think your opinion on AI running has been represented.
I'm not going to keep posting about how much I have enjoyed running AI, hehe
At least... I'm not planning on it... Don't tempt me!!

I have the information on why it was made this way and why it will not change...
But it'll cost ya!

And yes, Scooby Dont... With all of this ninja running, CoH stands for City Of Hunchbacks.
Soon to be released expansion, City Of Chiropractors will introduce debuffs for the spinal damage, but also plenty of buffing chiropractors... That's right! Where every visit has a happy ending.

Somebody stop me...

Castle chimed in on a discussion about this once... If I recall correctly, he commented on how Praetoria isn't an opposite/bizarro type of dimension, but just one where things and characters are harsher (possibly meaner).

For whatever that is worth.

Since we have the background of Praetoria now, we can see how and why this is the case and can basically use that to see how characters may have (or may have not) developed.

My approach is basically like what Marcian said.

I just use the world's events and the life in which they'd live (If they survived or were even born) to paint them anew.
Still, I think a good comicbook approach keeps with the spirit of it, somewhat. So, I'd like to try and keep the harsher universe / harsher version of the character idea in mind.

I actually have not yet plotted out any of my characters.
My main villain, Malfaz, though... I think he was freed from being taken (because he is a psychic), but he is still utterly wrought by his physical and mental illnesses, so he has a protective helmet device on his head preventing his psychic maelstrom from affecting others, but some resistance members believe he might be some sort of hope in their fight.

The Electric-Knight may never have gotten his powers. He only got them from being struck by lightning as a child, which merged with his undiscovered mutant genes that required such an incident. He may actually have had his mutant genes initiated in some other way... Maybe he'd have some sort of plant or earth powers from an incident in a Devouring Earth attack.

But yeah... I'd say, no set rule at all... Just a different background to alter the character's birth, upbringing, experiences and mental-makeup.

It's a fun question.

And... wow... I've been misspelling Praetorian all this time...